a quick trip to Thailand

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Having been in Laos for almost a month I needed to do something to either extend or renew my 30 day visa, and passing through Savannakhet, a town on the Mekong that is also a border crossing to Thailand I decided it would be fun to go to Thailand for a couple of hours and then on reentering the country buy a new visa for Laos... I'm really glad I renewed my visa rather than getting an extension, as going to Thailand for a couple of hours was a lot of fun!

Crossing the Mekong on a boat, there seemed to be a lot of Lao people who were heading to Mukdahan in Thailand - when I arrived there I realised why - the shopping in Thailand is fantastic compared to Laos. The town on the opposite side of the Mekong to Savannakhet has set itself up with markets and shops that you just can't find in Laos. I really enjoyed going to 7-11 and buying some familiar Thai snack foods - and also the icey cold airconditioning! After being in Laos for a month, this town in Thailand just seemed so developed... So many brand new cars were everywhere, the roads were all paved and clean, and going into a bank the people were dressed so elegantly in beautiful suits... They laughed at me as I only wanted to change $10US into baht!

But then afterwards when I saw the market I ended up going to an atm and getting out some more baht - as I really wanted to buy a new pair of sunglasses - I'm now on to my 5th pair - the last pair I bought in Vang Vieng were useless - and the pair before that I lost tubing. So now I am carrying around 4 different currencies with me, which is getting a bit complicated - Thai baht, US dollars, Lao Kip and Vietnamese dong. It is difficult as I don't want to end up with any Lao kip left when I leave Lao as it is pretty difficult to exchange - the people here don't even want it...

But Savannakhet is a pretty interesting place - lots of crumbling buildings built by the French, and being on the eastern side of the Mekong the sunsets over the river are great. I went to the Dinosaur Museum today, which was an amazing experience. Although it is just a single room with most of the exhibits only described in Lao and French, the curator was a really friendly guy who spoke good English and let me touch the fossils! I don't know of any other museums in the world where you are given 110 million year old dinosaur bones to hold in your hands!

Tomorrow I'm going to Champasak to see an old Khmer temple from the Angkor Empire, and then after that I'm going to go further south to a region in the Mekong known as the 4000 Islands. I doubt there will be much internet access there, so it might be a while again until my next post...

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